Greek Elections

New Democracy will be the largest party (the only pro bailout party) with 29% of the vote while Syriza (radical left - anti bailout party) will be a close second with 27%.

The third largest party Pasok (socialist - anti bailout) has just refused to enter a government without Syriza and all of the rest of the parties are anti bailout nutters. (By nutter I mean proper communist/fascists)

As a bonus conundrum, there is a quirk in Greek elections to give the largest party an extra 50 seats so New democracy will get 128 seats to Syriza's 72 seats, but New Democracy still needs partners to form a government, who are all anti-bailout.

Any thoughts on how Greece sorts this political mess out to form a government?

New Democracy will be the largest party (the only pro bailout party) with 29% of the vote while Syriza (radical left - anti bailout party) will be a close second with 27%.

The third largest party Pasok (socialist - anti bailout) has just refused to enter a government without Syriza and all of the rest of the parties are anti bailout nutters. (By nutter I mean proper communist/fascists)

As a bonus conundrum, there is a quirk in Greek elections to give the largest party an extra 50 seats so New democracy will get 128 seats to Syriza's 72 seats, but New Democracy still needs partners to form a government, who are all anti-bailout.

Any thoughts on how Greece sorts this political mess out to form a government?

I have to imagine ND and PASOK will form a pro-bailout government. They have the seats to do it, I'm not sure what the alternative is. The anti-bailout parties don't have enough seats to form a government, I'm not sure how elections work in these countries. If no party can form a majority, do they have another election a month or so from now?

I see that Neo-Nazi party maintain the majority of their seats while the Communists lost quite a few.

I have to imagine ND and PASOK will form a pro-bailout government. They have the seats to do it, I'm not sure what the alternative is. The anti-bailout parties don't have enough seats to form a government, I'm not sure how elections work in these countries. If no party can form a majority, do they have another election a month or so from now?

I see that Neo-Nazi party maintain the majority of their seats while the Communists lost quite a few.

This is already a redo election after a failure to form a coalition, so I would imagine that there is more pressure to form a coalition than there might otherwise be.

Keep bailout but subject it to a "structured and courageous revision"; implement fiscal adjustment over three years, not two

Pasok wholly reject the current bailout and want an entirely new bailout with completely different terms, hence the diplomatic language of "structured and courageous revision".

A less diplomatic way of saying it would be 'throw it and the bin and start again'.

It is also worth pointing out that the table on display there is the positions of the parties in May's election, along with the results from May. Pasok refused to budge further towards austerity and form a government last time round.

Support for Pasok has fallen with people defecting to Syriza making the case for austerity even weaker and Pasok announced a few hours ago that they refuse to enter into a coalition without Syriza.

Keep bailout but subject it to a "structured and courageous revision"; implement fiscal adjustment over three years, not two

Pasok wholly reject the current bailout and want an entirely new bailout with completely different terms, hence the diplomatic language of "structured and courageous revision".

A less diplomatic way of saying it would be 'throw it and the bin and start again'.

It is also worth pointing out that the table on display there is the positions of the parties in May's election, along with the results from May. Pasok refused to budge further towards austerity and form a government last time round.

Support for Pasok has fallen with people defecting to Syriza making the case for austerity even weaker and Pasok announced a few hours ago that they refuse to enter into a coalition without Syriza.

The position of New Democracy is

Quote:

Keep bailout but more time for restructuring and EU help to stimulate growth

This is not appreciably different from Pasok's stance. You're trying to read all sorts of things into the term "courageous revision," but the only specific detail given is that Pasok wants more time (which New Democracy also explicitly calls for), New Democracy also wants stimulus from the EU which was not originally negotiated for.

Pasok is thus still sticking with New Democracy, in cooperation with which they had presided over the initial agreement.

That's why the article lumps them together [ "pro-austerity parties (Pasok and New Democracy)" ] and describes the situation as:

Quote:

While the radical-left Syriza and other smaller parties have opposed the bailout, New Democracy and Pasok said they would keep it in a renegotiated form.

None of the parties will take the position that they are happy with the bailout agreement, the difference is that two of them won't consider invalidating the current bailout agreement except if they can line up a different one.

This is not appreciably different from Pasok's stance. You're trying to read all sorts of things into the term "courageous revision," but the only specific detail given is that Pasok wants more time (which New Democracy also explicitly calls for), New Democracy also wants stimulus from the EU which was not originally negotiated for.

Pasok is thus still sticking with New Democracy, in cooperation with which they had presided over the initial agreement.

That's why the article lumps them together [ "pro-austerity parties (Pasok and New Democracy)" ] and describes the situation as:

Quote:

While the radical-left Syriza and other smaller parties have opposed the bailout, New Democracy and Pasok said they would keep it in a renegotiated form.

This seems to be turning into a disagreement about the interpretation of a single source's one sentence summary of situation.

If Pasok & New Democracy are so closely aligned, why did Pasok refuse to enter into a coalition without Syriza immediately after the preliminary results were announced?

This is not appreciably different from Pasok's stance. You're trying to read all sorts of things into the term "courageous revision," but the only specific detail given is that Pasok wants more time (which New Democracy also explicitly calls for), New Democracy also wants stimulus from the EU which was not originally negotiated for.

Pasok is thus still sticking with New Democracy, in cooperation with which they had presided over the initial agreement.

That's why the article lumps them together [ "pro-austerity parties (Pasok and New Democracy)" ] and describes the situation as:

Quote:

While the radical-left Syriza and other smaller parties have opposed the bailout, New Democracy and Pasok said they would keep it in a renegotiated form.

This seems to be turning into a disagreement about the interpretation of a single source's one sentence summary of situation.

If Pasok & New Democracy are so closely aligned, why did Pasok refuse to enter into a coalition without Syriza immediately after the preliminary results were announced?

They are pretty much back in the same position as they were in May.

No the difference in that you're drawing ridiculous conclusions from their desire to include Syriza.

The reason they want to include Syriza is because they've been losing votes to them for supporting the bailout deal when Syriza doesn't. If Syriza has to support it too this will stop. This isn't about how much they agree with Syriza, it's about wanting to safeguard the survival of their party against Syriza.

They are pretty much in the same situation because as May because the election results were very similar.

This one from a few hours ago says Pasok as agreed to go ahead without Syriza.:

Quote:

According to the officials, both New Democracy party leader Antonis Samaras and Socialist chief Evangelos Venizelos are prepared to move ahead on their own--and without the support of other parties--despite Venizelos's public call late Sunday for a broad coalition government of four parties or more.

Greece's radical left Syriza party, which came in second in the polls Sunday, has already ruled out joining such a coalition.

"Venizelos and Samaras agree that a coalition must be worked out as soon as possible. Now that it has become clear that Syriza won't participate, the process can move quite fast," said a senior Pasok party official with direct knowledge of the talks. "Senior officials from both parties are already talking. The expectation is that a deal will be reached by Wednesday."

No the difference in that you're drawing ridiculous conclusions from their desire to include Syriza.

Have you actually been following Greece very closely over the last few weeks and read any other source apart from that single BBC article?

Let's try looking at more than a single sentence shall we?

"There will be no civil service layoffs," he told unionists on May 30, a statement that flies in the face of Greece's promise to its international creditors to reduce its civil service payroll by 150,000 by 2015.
"We proposed a structured and courageous revision of the unfavorable conditions of the (loan) agreement," he later told a crowd in the working-class Athens district of Nea Ionia.

Now please explain to me how Pasok can honestly be classed as being 'pro-bailout' when it's entire election run up has been about promising to REJECT all the nasty bits of the bailout that has already been agreed even though all the creditors/EU/IMF/Germany/etc have already made it perfectly clear that it is out of the question?

Sure it suits everyone outside of Greece that hasn't been paying attention to call Pasok a pro-bailout party to 'calm the markets' but they have promised not to implement any of the cuts already agreed to in the bailout, basically they want to take the money, no strings attached something that is never going happen.

The third largest party Pasok (socialist - anti bailout) has just refused to enter a government without Syriza and all of the rest of the parties are anti bailout nutters. (By nutter I mean proper communist/fascists)

All Forex brokers are urging their investors to hold NO POSITIONS ON THE EURO

The invisible herd is running off a cliff again.

The euro is not going to fail, this is a post Lehman world.

Look at the shitstorm that happen after one piddly little 600 billion dollar bank imploded, do you really think TPTB have such short memories that they will let the world's second largest economic zone (after the US if measured in US Dollars) go poof?

Especially when a lot of the current problems can be solved by putting a bullet in Merkel's head and telling the ECB to start printing, an option that private companies don't have...

For example Greece is already running a surplus on it's spending, it just can't service it's debts while it is having to pay 20% for the privilege of borrowing. If the ECB stepped in and hoovered up the bond sales from the EU nations (the way the FED buys up the US treasury bonds) The Greek budget would be in rude health.

The third largest party Pasok (socialist - anti bailout) has just refused to enter a government without Syriza and all of the rest of the parties are anti bailout nutters. (By nutter I mean proper communist/fascists)

What about the Independent Greeks?

They are demanding that Germany give them lots of money because Germany was nasty in WWII.